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Libyan rebels gain firepower

By David D. Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim New York Times

Posted:
02/28/2011 12:01:00 AM CST

ZAWIYAH, Libya — The Libyan rebels challenging Col. Moammar Gadhafi demonstrated their increasing military coordination and firepower Sunday, as defecting officers in the east took steps to establish a unified command while their followers in this rebel-held city, just outside his stronghold in the capital, displayed tanks, Kalashnikovs and anti-aircraft guns.

The rebels also began making plans to tap revenue from the vast Libyan oil resources now under their control — estimated to be about 80 percent of the country's total. And in recognition of the insurrection's growing power, Italy's foreign minister suspended a nonaggression treaty with Libya on the ground that the Libyan state "no longer exists," while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States was reaching out to the rebels to "offer any kind of assistance."

The most striking display of strength came in Zawiyah, 30 miles from Gadhafi's Tripoli redoubt, one of several cities controlled by rebels, who have repulsed repeated attempts by Gadhafi's forces to retake them. The arsenal they had in Zawiyah was far more lethal than previously seen.

"Army, army, army!" excited residents shouted, pointing to a defected soldier standing sentry at Zawiyah's entrance as he raised his machine gun in the air and held up two fingers for victory.

A few yards away a captured anti-aircraft gun fired several deafening salutes into the air, and gleeful residents invited newcomers to clamber aboard one of several Army tanks.

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Residents said that when Gadhafi's forces mounted a deadly assault to retake the city last Thursday — shell holes were visible in the central mosque and ammunition littered the central square — local army units switched sides to join the rebels, as 2,000 police officers had done the week before.

And Sunday, residents armed with machine guns and rifles joined in a chant that has become the slogan of pro-democracy uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and across the Arab world: "The people want to bring down the regime!"

The opposition's display came as a global effort to isolate Gadhafi and possibly force his resignation gained momentum over the weekend, with the U.N. Security Council moving to impose punitive financial sanctions and NATO allies discussing steps that included a possible no-fly zone.

But with their increasingly brazen show of firepower, the rebels appeared more willing to engage Gadhafi's forces militarily and break the pattern of nonviolent revolts set by neighboring Egypt and Tunisia and now sweeping the Middle East — just as Gadhafi has shown a willingness to shed far more of his citizens' blood than any of the region's other autocrats.

The maneuverings by both sides suggested they were girding for a confrontation that could influence the shape of other protest movements.

Gadhafi's militias, plainclothes police and other paramilitary forces have so far kept the deserted streets of Tripoli under lockdown. And residents of Zawiyah said Sunday that his forces were massing again on its outskirts.

On Saturday, the country's former justice minister, Mustafa Mohamed Abd al-Jalil, said in an interview on Al-Jazeera that he would head a transitional government, with the aim of holding elections within three months. But on Sunday, another figure in the rebel movement, Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, seemed to dismiss that claim, saying a national council had been formed to manage the "day to day living" of the "liberated" territories.

The Gadhafi government implicitly acknowledged for the first time Sunday that it feared elements of its military falling into rebel hands, as Gadhafi's son Seif said in an interview with ABC News that the Libyan government had bombed its own ammunitions depots in the east.